Readers must be given room to bring their own emotions to a piece so crammed with emotional content; the writer must tenaciously resist explaining why the material is so moving.

Today the outlandish becomes routine overnight. The humorist is trying to say that it's still outlandish.

The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.

Many of us were taught that no sentence should begin with "but." If that's what you learned, unlearn it - there's no stronger word at the start. It announces a total contrast with what has gone before, and the reader is thereby primed for the change.

To defend what you've written is a sign that you are alive.

Finding a voice that your readers will enjoy is largely a matter of taste. Saying that isn't much help-taste is a quality so intangible that it can't even be defined. But we know it when we meet it.

Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident. . . . Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the reader's trust. Readers want a writer who believes in himself and in what he is saying. Don't diminish that belief. Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.